In This Update:
• Yahoo Shareholder Urges Sale of Search to Microsoft
• AOL Relaunching Bebo; Bringing Frenemies Under Its Roof
• Hulu Streams 235 Million Videos in October; Sixth Most Popular U.S. Video Service
• What the Search Engines Have Found Out About All of Us
• Emotive Raises $6.25 Million, Buys Sennari
• High End Job Search Site RiseSmart Raises $3 Million
• Wellness-Focused Marketing Site InnerRewards Raises $1 Million Seed Round
• SplashCast Partners With Hulu on Video Channels
• Truphone Adds Key iPhone App Features, Hunkers Down
• Kutcher’s Katalyst Films To Launch Original Series On Slide
• Real Estate Site Roost Raises $8 Million in Funding
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Yahoo Shareholder Urges Sale of Search to Microsoft
REUTERS
Ivory Investment Management LP, which owns 1.5 percent of shares of Yahoo Inc, urged the Internet company to sell its search business to Microsoft Corp, saying such a deal could more than double Yahoo’s value.Ivory proposed in a letter to Yahoo’s board that it salvage a deal with Microsoft, which had failed earlier this year to buy Yahoo after offering as much as $33 a share. The software company had also tried to buy Yahoo’s search business, but was turned down.
Yahoo shares were trading at $12.67 pre-market on Wednesday, up 4 percent from their Nasdaq close on Tuesday.
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AOL Relaunching Bebo; Bringing Frenemies Under Its Roof
PAIDCONTENT
So what do Bebo users get for the $850 million AOL shelled out for the social site? Easier Yahoo Mail access, for one. Bebo is today launching Social Inbox, a social feed and email aggregator that brings access to services including Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, AIM, YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and AOL Mail, all from within the Bebo site. It’s basically the injection in to Bebo of SocialThing, the little FriendFeed-type aggregator AOL bought in August and which has come under former Bebo president Joanna Shields’ newly widened remit as AOL People Networks president; and it certainly helps unify communication options at a time when our social memberships are fragmenting. But the main beneficiaries are users of Bebo, rather than AOL, and its true to say that, technologically speaking, this could have been accomplished pretty easily without Bebo being absorbed by AOL.
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Hulu Streams 235 Million Videos in October; Sixth Most Popular U.S. Video Service
CENTER NETWORKS
comScore is out with their latest U.S. online video report today. Back in May comScore listed Hulu for the first top in the top 10 with 88 million videos viewed. Today Hulu has moved up in comScore’s online video report for October to sixth position with 235 million videos viewed. Pretty amazing growth for a service some called crap before Hulu actually launched.
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What the Search Engines Have Found Out About All of Us
NEW YORK TIMES
Google has released its map of the national brain and appetites for 2008, and it turns out that many, many people across America have been asking the Internet “what is love?” and “how to kiss.” And to tighten the focus, Google has also provided a list of search queries made by people sitting at computers in New York City. It turns out that New Yorkers are looking for something a bit different. On a list of the 10 subjects that posted the greatest increases this year, the country as a whole was looking for Fox News and information about David Cook, the “American Idol” champion.
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Emotive Raises $6.25 Million, Buys Sennari
SOCAL TECH
Los Angeles-based Emotive Communications, which is developing ringtone-based, entertainment products for the mobile market, said today that it has scored $6.25M in a second round of venture financing. The round was led by The Mayfield Fund, and also included prior investors D. E. Shaw Ventures and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments. Emotive also said that it has acquired Sennari Entertainment, a provider of loyalty programs for the mobile market. Financial terms of the acquisition of Sennari were not disclosed. Sennari Entertainment was venture backed by more than $17M by Blacksmith Capital, Mayfield, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, and UV Partners. Emotive said the Sennari buy gives it access to Sennari’s mobile CRM and loyalty platform, and will be combined with its RingJam product for the entertainment media market.
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High End Job Search Site RiseSmart Raises $3 Million
ALARM CLOCK
We spotted Dallas-based (now relocated to Sunnyvale) search site RiseSmart back in March when it raised angel funding. Today the company announced that it had raised $3M from Norwest Venture Partners.RiseSmart competes with The Ladders with what it calls a “concierge service” to people who command $100K+. RiseSmart says it now employs clerks in India who sort through jobs posted online that might be the best for for their job-seeking clients. So rather than spending your time combing through LinkedIn and Craigslist job postings, you would pay RiseSmart’s clerks to help you. You would pay $43.95 per month or $109.95 for three months for the service.
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Wellness-Focused Marketing Site InnerRewards Raises $1 Million Seed Round
PAIDCONTENT
InnerRewards, a wellness and spa-focused online marketing company, has picked up $1 million in funding from a group of angel investors. The SF-based company is rolling out a public beta of InnerRewards.com, a site for spa-goers where they can find a mix of editorial and community features, as well as e-commerce. Visitors will be able to order gift certificates and book wellness excursions through participating service providers. The company’s most recognizable competitor is Spa Week Media Group, purveyor of the Spa Week site and associated promotions.
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SplashCast Partners With Hulu on Video Channels
CENTER NETWORKS
SplashCast and Hulu have announced a new partnership today that will bring shows from Hulu into SplashCast widget video players. Basically what the partnership does is allow a person to embed a “channel” into their Facebook and MySpace profiles along with blogs which will continue to import the latest episodes and content. This keeps the content more current than an individual Hulu embed. From the release, “The SplashCast player includes full episodes and clips from various seasons of each show, as well as interviews with the show’s characters, producers, and more. Fans can even upload their own humorous photos and videos for all to see, as well as view, rate and comment on photos and videos submitted by others.”
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Truphone Adds Key iPhone App Features, Hunkers Down
TECHCRUNCH
Truphone has re-vamped its iPhone app with two crucial new features. The first, dubbed Truphone Anywhere enables iPhone users to make low-priced international calls via the GSM network even when they are not connected to Wi-Fi. This is significant because prior to this you needed WiFi. The second is that inbound Truphone calling on the iPhone has now been added for the first time. That means Truphone-made calls between two iPhones are free. In addition – and this is somethiing business users will probably like – Truphone users will be able to indicate ‘presence’, as in ‘available’ or not.
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Kutcher’s Katalyst Films To Launch Original Series On Slide
PAIDCONTENT
Katalyst Films, the production company run by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, will be rolling out an original online series via widget-maker Slide in the coming months. Facebook users that have enabled the Slide FunSpace app will be able to watch and share the sponsored clips, and the two companies will split the ad revenue. It’s the first original series that will be released on Slide. Kutcher leaked the news at our LA Year End Review and Mixer during his rather entertaining and enlightening Q&A with Arianna Huffington, though he didn’t reveal the name of the show or its commercial sponsors.
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Real Estate Site Roost Raises $8 Million in Funding
CNET
Roost, a San Francisco-based real estate search site, has secured $8 million in funding, bucking the slowdown trend in the property market and economy overall, the company announced on Tuesday. Shasta Ventures led the round, which also included General Catalyst Partners, The Cross Country Group LLC and Geolo Capital, who had previously provided $5.5 million.
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